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‘DO NO HARM’ and ‘assume the best of each other’ are common phrases that capture some of our deepest ethical commitments. People are upset and angry right now because Irish society has not only failed to prevent harm to Ms Y, but we’ve actually increased her suffering. Forcibly hydrating, and essentially refusing an abortion to this vulnerable, suicidal rape victim, has not assumed the best of her. What’s worse is that we don’t seem to have learned from previous experiences.
Our emotional reactions to this recent case tell us something important; that even if we disagree about abortion, reducing harm to sentient beings ought to be the starting point for our law and policy. The failure to perform an abortion was wrong because it produced more harm than good. More generally, we know that restricting access to abortion does not stop abortion; it just makes the experience more harmful. If Irish society is serious about reducing harm to pregnant women, including the harms of disrespecting their autonomy and bodily integrity, the state needs to change how it thinks about pregnancy and abortion. The recognition of woman and foetus as legal equals has been harmful, and needs to change.
Reasonable people disagree on the intrinsic value of embryonic life
It’s true that some forms of ethical thinking hold that even if a law has the effect of reducing harm overall, it should not allow actions that are intrinsically wrong. But why would abortion be intrinsically wrong? Intentionally ending embryonic or foetal life after conception may be wrong in itself, if you take the view that it goes against god, or that ‘genetically individuated life forms’ deserve moral status. Individuals are entitled to take that moral view. They certainly shouldn’t be compelled to act against that view by being made to have an abortion. But they should not be entitled to deny abortion to others, because the independent moral value of embryonic and foetal life is something over which reasonable people disagree.
There is another line of ethical thinking which takes a different stance on the intrinsic value of embryonic and foetal life. This view believes that sentience, the capacity to feel pain and pleasure, is ethically significant. As a result, sentient life has a higher moral value than non-sentient life. For many women and many ethicists, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with intentionally ending embryonic or foetal life because that life is not sentient.
Of course, this is only part of the picture, not least because embryos and foetuses become valuable in our lives as we sentient beings care for them. But the view that sentience is a better starting point than conception for separate protection is well-established in the ethical literature. In other words, it is perfectly justifiable to allow women decide on abortion because abortion is not intrinsically wrong from a sentience perspective.
Women are intrinsically valuable as sentient beings
We might even say that a law that permits abortion is ethically preferable precisely because women are intrinsically valuable as sentient beings and moral agents. If we want to live in a world that encourages moral agency and ethical deliberation, we need to assume the best of pregnant women.
In the context of pregnancy, women are the most relevant experts. They are the ones sustaining the pregnancy within their bodies and evaluating its significance in real, everyday circumstances. Pregnant women are often full of hope and make decisions to benefit their future child, even as they also worry about the future and what it might bring. They may be happy about being pregnant even if they feel sick and tired. But obviously women may also be unhappy about being pregnant for all kinds of reasons. If we don’t take women’s views about this intimate experience seriously, we risk turning that pregnancy into a non-consensual intrusion.
It’s time, beyond time, to draw on our commitments to ‘do no harm’ and ‘assume the best of each other’ and change legal thinking about pregnancy. The legal system can best reduce harm by removing the legal equality between woman and foetus. Irish law can best value human life by taking sentience seriously. Treating non-sentient and sentient life, foetus and woman, as if they are the same misrecognises and disrespects both forms of life. Perhaps we can begin to repair the hurt and anger by recognising pregnant women as sentient beings and putting their feelings and thoughts at the centre of medical decision-making.
Dr Ruth Fletcher is a Senior Lecturer in Medical Law at Queen Mary University of London and a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork.
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€20 Burgers …it’s all about the money baby.
Isn’t if funny how 90% of the people giving out about the lovely Sharon, the goddess sharon i hasten to add… are female?
*on twitter
Whoever is at fault, the gov just lost the country potentially hundreds of millions in revenue, just another big gov eff up in a long list.
@adrian – no the government are not to blame on this one – the web summit got offered 1.4 million from lisbon. If these lads really beleive hotels in Lisbon are going to keep the prices at €200 for four nights they are deluded unless Portugal has turned communist.. as for traffic management Dublin is Dublin streets can’t get any wider and rush hour traffic is rush hour traffic – ideally we need a purpose built venue – if the summit was on in the evening – no problem, Dublin hosts all – irelands and many other large events without hassle – the summit organisers want more than Ireland inc can give them.
rte doing ends bidding again
Interesting project for a budding journalist would be to keep an eye on Portugal next year and see if they keep their ‘promises’ and that’ll mean that Ireland can learn and get the summit back the year after. After all these lads were forced to leave Dublin because it couldn’t handle it.
The way i see it is, its an opportunity for a lot of millionaires and billionaires, with very deep pockets, who are probably used to paying extra for extra special service, to spend a lot of money in ireland, and unfortunately, they’ll be splashing their cash in portugal next year. Paddy could have possibly been pushing the boat out and maybe asked for too much but yet again it shows that this gov is an absolute amateurish incompetent mess. In fact, I wouldn’t credit this gov for any economic recovery, its the businesses thats making the recovery. All this gov have done is raise taxes and collected the money
Is there no other IT savvy individual out there capable of launching a summit like this,
I suggest The Dublin Webfest
Four weeks ago , I booked my usual budget hotel in Dublin for tomorrow night only to discover that because of the Web Summit , my friendly Hotel Owner had raised his prices by 60% for the week .
A similar Budget hotel in Lisbon is €42 Euro, including Breakfast – for me only tomorrow night, it’s €95 including brekkie !
Now would you blame them for moving it to Lisbon ?
@EDDIE with the capital letters – he was probably a racist Eddie, eh?
Sorry Eddie but there is no comparison between this. Check next year when the summit is on how much the hotel rooms are. I think it will be more than 42e.
Eddie,
have you ever booked a hotel the same weekend as concert in Dublin, or a match. its supply and demand. you need to compare like for like,
try booking a hotel in Lisbon when there is a major event on.
According to the details for Cosgrave which I checked recently, I noticed his educational background in Trinity was in political science, and not IT, surprisingly enough. It would make you wonder why he considers himself a judge on the quality of IT degress in Trinty vs other Unis though…
And chicks?
Adrian can you explain to me how 40,000 approx attendees at a conference can amount to hundreds of millions in revenue? Not saying it’s not a loss, but people keep saying hundreds of millions lost and I can’t figure how they reach that figure unless they are counting future revenue over a number of years.
Yes but the web summit is in Dublin. so next year in Lisbon the prices will sky rocket. whats your point?
Its a pity that Sharon or dobbo don’t be this aggressive when interviewing Kenny the rare time he comes on the six 1 news, but that will never happen because the must protect the crown jewel that is the TV licence tax to keep their gravy train going.
I don’t see any problem with that interview.
Shame she can’t be as grilling with our politicians
She’s obviously capable of it but sher who would extort her wages from the peepil if she got the government off-side?
Kevin she wouldn’t be allowed she must ask questions to Enda about what shop did he buy the messages in and what you having for dinner
Could you imagine kenny getting such a grilling, it’d be something like…..up,up, ahem, er, ahem, er, sharon… i once met a man with two heads……….
State TV.
Agree Kevin. Why are people so shocked when an interviewer asks ‘hard’ questions? That’s their job. Paddy Cosgrave’s dealings with the authorities over the Websummit is his own business not our business. Maybe everyone should grow up and start acting like adults.
I once met a man named Richard Head.
@Brian people are shocked because they only seem to grill easy targets
She was doing her job as a journalist…. Questioning and critiquing. Whether she was coming from a completely unbiased perspective though is a different question.
How come it’s only everyone else apart from our leaders that they question, though? Whenever they interview anyone who might have a negative thing or two to say about our great leaders, they’re suddenly “journalists”. I wish they’d scrutinize everyone equally.
100%
You mean she’s doing her job on behalf of Enda.
She’s doing a job in the interests of the Irish people these techie nerds have has carte blanch to say as they wish unchallenged up on stage at their snooty exclusive summit, about time someone faced a grilling. Telling that big man cosgrave bailed on the interview.
I couldn’t give a flying f… They can grill anyone and everyone apart from the only people the whole country wants them to grill. Anything else is just petty distraction at this stage until they deal with that.
Joe – you are correct. Gerry needs to get a full grilling on SF/IRA activities.
I’ll humour you, Power… Let’s say that is a matter of utmost importance… Gerry should still be 5th or 6th in the queue
aisleen…no she was not. ..she was a nasty arrogant sort trying to bully and intimidate the person being interviewed. she constantly cut off this man and prevented him from replying. ….so in a nutshell a nasty sort trying to prove she can be as useless as other Rte so called intervierers
She is in her behind as she has a nervous breakdown if you dare question the Goverment line on thing. She is clearly overrated and her aggressiveness typifies the D4 mind set that we are other fools not to believe the RTE spin machine
Not a great performance from the interviewer, RTE don’t grill politicians that hard but some of her arguments were valid.
The two lads behind the web summit have come across as a pair of whines. It’s not up to the government to police hotels, hotels are a privately run business. Businesses tend to capitalise on opportunities – look at the food vendors at the web summit..or the €50 web summit hoodies…..or the extortionate prices for tickets to…the web summit.
FYI the food vendors at the web summit were told to prepare €8 meals. The web summit then sells food tokens to attendees for €20, we can only guess where the extra €12 is going…….
That’s ridiculous.
They might be good at hosting a web summit but they have a lot to learn in PR. However legitimate their complaints are, the constant sniping from Cosgrave does his brand no good. There seems to be very little goodwill towards the man. Does anyone seriously think that the government should get hotels to offer special deals to attendees of the web summit? Or that VIPs should be whisked through rush hour traffic while us plebs sit on the bus applauding the fact? His latest claims that any money the received was “hush money” and that all the controversy ( which he started) around the move to Lisbon was a smoke-screen to divert attention from real problems is just basic nonsense – anyone with kids can spot a sulking brat. And unless you’re planning on staying in no-star pensao in Lisbon, you won’t find anywhere for €50 a night. Well done Sharon for calling out the spoofers.
Can I get the address of the hotels in Lisbon that will charge me €200 for 4 days during the web summit next year…Stuff the summit..Im going on holidays..lol
be doing well to find anything for less than 100 a night
Since when does a government get involved in controlling hotel prices, that is that wonderful economic world of supply and demand which the lads seem to be missing the point on….
With the food prices they’re charging, I’d guess they’re also ignorant of the concept of diminishing returns….
He complains about hotel prices and then charges €20 for a burger or a hot dog, you couldn’t make it up.
as one person said, the gouging is considered a disgrace until its the summit themselves doing it
She would never grill a government minister like that …. She knows better!
That was A1 Sharon good girl…
Kinda gettin a bit tired of the web summit organisers and the never ending whinging, they’ve made good money here and they’ll do the same in Lisbon or wherever they go after, so bog off lads hopefully the Portuguese govt will give you more than the €700,000 “hush money” you got here
Once Cosgrave bailed it was inevitable that she was gonna go hard on them. Those guys are bluffers but also grasping capitalist sharks that want to suck every euro from both their poor unfortunate customers (the 20 euro sambo!) and any government that gets into bed with them. She had to interject as the guy would spoof on all day if he was let. The notion that the lisbon organisers will hold down hotel prices is also extremely risible – how will that work in reality?
Is anyone surprised? Sharon was just defending her employers, RTE (i.e. the media wing of the Irish government and paid for by the taxpayer)
Awful interview , impartial my ass
As some-one who expected hard-hitting questions and was anxious to hear the spokesman’s replies, Sharon’s constant interruptions were rude in the extreme and of little use to those listeners who were genuinely interested to hear what the interviewee had to say.
Another graduate of the Pat Kenny school of journalism.
Where is Pat Kenny’s school of journalism?
It’s where ever you want it to be Gabby.
Yes respondents should be allowed waffle on answering different questions they were asked, preceeded by ‘Let me be absolutely clear about this’ before being totally unclear.
How dare RTE try to focus them to give a straight answer.
You have 2 Ears & 1 Mouth for a reason Sharon.
Altogether now “CHERRIO CHEERIO CHEERIO”.
Bryan Dobson did the same to a water metre protestor. I can’t remember if it was a politician or a member of the public. It was at the very beginning of the introduction of the charge. I remember thinking it was a scandalous interview. I couldn’t care less about the charge one way or another. So it’s not a bias comment I’ve made.
seems paddys accuation of government lies and hush money hit a raw nerve somewhere, that shaz is the attack dog was a surprise
will goodbody looked nervous at saying “it wasnt a total disaster” … RTE Nazis !!
Cosgrave made a big thing of it in his opener, he deserved to be asked about it.
I thought Sharon was focused, though a little aggressive. Daire Hickey did a fine job of responding, and almost didn’t lose the cool! Would have been interesting to see Paddy Cosgrave’s reaction!
To be honest his business partner threw him to the dogs by bailing on the interview at the last minute. Daire was onto a loser from the get go. He did well although did trip himself up on some of his responses especially the Hotels Federation point. His biggest mistake was ripping off the mic and giving Sharon the “look” just before the coverage finished.
When they announced they were moving to Portugal they should have shut up and left it at that. The constant whinging is nothing more than massaging their egos in public and is showing them up for exactly what they are.
Paul, I’d hazard a guess that Mr. Cosgrave didn’t accumulate the moolah he obviously has today by failing to through colleagues and underlings ‘under the bus’ , so to speak, when he felt it was required.
err, that should be ‘throw’ and not ‘through’
It’s government lackies vs tech spoofers in a fight to..something I dunno.
All we know is, whoever wins, the Web Summit is a run-of-the-mill tech conference with no serious business or learning opportunities for 99% of those in attendance, and the management team are overflowing with bullshit.
RTE/GOVMT INTERVIEW SEEMS TO BE RAISING AN EYEBROW OR TWO.. WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD TO HEAR A FULL ANSWER FROM THE GUY… ATTACK IS BEST FORM OF DEFENCE FOR THE GOVT oops! SORRY RTE…KEEP GETTING THISE TWO MIXED UP…
You seem like an intelligent, reasonable, individual who wants to get to the nub of the matter.
I bet if Enda Kenny was been interviewed she would have to stick to the preprepared script. And if she went off script Enda’s advisors would never let her interview him again.
Will Sharon be interviewing any of the price gougers, who ultimately are responsible for driving the Web Summit to Lisbon from 2016.
she did, thats what the post is about
I have noticed a tendency for Rte interviews to be rude and disrespectful. They almost seem like they have to prove that they are real interviewers with their constant interruptions and disregard for the points that are trying to be made by the person being interviewed. I am very surprised that someone hasn’t walked off one of these interrogations yet. classic example of big fish in small pond interview style
It’s seems the way TV interviews are going for example Sky has eamon Holmes and Kay burley and they are just pig ignorant in their interviews it just descends into them sneering and badgering people
I have no problem if she used the same technique when interviewing politicians but we know that will never happen agreed script only or they will not be interviewed.
Licence fee wasted on $hite like that
She doesn’t interview people she bombards them with questions. Doesn’t give them a chance to fully answer the question especially if the interviewee is not giving the answer she wants.
Sit Sharon sit… Good dog.
sexist.
It’s just like a tender process really, a higher bid came in from Lisbon. The Websummit is a business at the end of the day but don’t expect Rte to understand the finer details of running a business for profit!!
Liam, that would be fine if the organisers would just admit it!
Yer man Cosgrave goes on like a psycho.
Good riddance to them threatening to hold the country to ransom with their arrogance. “€200 for 4 nights hotel accommodation in Lisbon… You couldn’t get one night in a hotel in Dublin for that “…. Bullshit
He interviewed very well I thought shame Sharon hasn’t the opportunity to grill some tds like that
not the fairest interview from Sharon. but the Web scammit dudes brought this on themselves by over-whinging. one of the dumbest pr moves that I’ve seen in a while. trying to pressure the government publicly back-fired for them. this discussion should have been conducted out of the media and if it didn’t work out then spin some auld corporate-speak shyte about moving to Lisbon for some made-up reason.
She should have afforded him the opportunity to answer the questions in full instead of interrupting him in mid sentence. Fab Enda as usual offering to help without any real intention of doing so. Of course the hotel section did what they usually do in Dublin, they jacked the prices.
The organisers of the Web Summit come across as practical people who wanted to get the best for the attendees. Obviously Lisbon recognised that and put an appropriate package in place. Same old story of government throwing a pittance to indigenous entrepreneurial efforts while soaking the foreign nationals in all sorts of largess. Time to even up the playing pitch.
Sharon isn’t a great interviewer but my last impression of the Web Summit organisers is that they are a bunch of self important whinging cry babies.
Hipster nerds and man-children without sufficient life experience.
Sharon Stated in her biased interrogation that the web summit organisers did not offer to pay for the increase in number of gardai which would have to be paid by the tax payer, there was no such mention of this line of thought when the Queen came to visit Ireland. When The Queen came to Ireland we were told that the event would promote Ireland and promote our tourism sector. I believe we have lost something just as valuable in the promotion of the technology sector and the promotion of our country to entrepreneurs. I cringed throughout the interview and thought Daire Hickey was so professional in the way he held himself.
Quote : “RTÉ FACTUAL: This week presenter George Lee visits Silicon Valley in America to see what lessons we can learn from them about start up business, cracking the American market and their overall attitude to entrepreneurism” The Irony!!!! Maybe RTE should of sent Sharon to Silicon Valley or let George do the interview.
*should have
Watched that and interview was spot Cosgrove bottled out and wants the irish taxpayers to fund his company. It will be interesting to see how many go to lisbon. If you want bigger take it Europe’s biggest exhibition centre in hannover. We were in a hotel an hours train ride away cos the company booked late. Cost a fortune as well.
Does it look like she’s putting on weight?
Good man. Very relevant comment.
Thanks Oisin.
Glad to see you share my concern.
This whole web summit thing is becoming the new Garth Brooks concerts. At first I was thinking “Ah lads, surely you can work this out,” but after hearing these nerds bleating about it for the last few days I’m just thinking “F off to Portugal already.”
I don’t want to hear anybody who serves the lunch they did for 20 euro complaining about anything.
RTE, the governments excuse and spin station…
The government couldn’t hold a knees up in a brewery…
Having looked at all the evidence, I sympathise with the Web Summit founders and RTE are clearly Biased and a branch of Govt
I watched the interview and didn’t see any problem with it. She asked questions that to be fair most of the population would like to ask. The Web Summit organisers have become tedious at this point. Stop sledging Ireland and the Irish government and just move on. They are tarnishing their own brand at this pont with the negative PR.
#spoofers
Is it true that the WebSummit are going to refund the taxpyer/enterprise Ireland for the 800k we’ve given them, now that they are moving their wildly profitable business offshore?
Excellent interview.
Usual RTE bias. All RTE are, is another department in the government.
So ask anyone who needed a hotel in Cardiff during the rugby quarter finals weekend about hotels price gouging? price gouging happens in the UK, in continental Europe, in the USA etc… What precisely is the Government to do? What precise legislation that is constitutional can the Irish Government bring in?
I don’t begrudge the web summit company any money they make or success they have in Dublin, Lisbon or anywhere but whatever damage they might be doing to the Government is overshadowed by the damage they are doing themselves quite deliberately to Ireland’s reputation and , in my view, to their own brand.
Cosgrave ranted on Morning Ireland. he comes across as a spoilt brat. This is the same man, a Trinity alumni who totally dissed other Irish universities a few years ago. He seems straight out of Ross o Carroll Kelly in my view.
How much did they pocket personally?
Lisbon offered €1,4 million no wonder they are moving .. All I say is ” bye bye good riddance” my tax payer money deserves to go to more important things like pensioners and hospital beds
Still would
The nub of Dublin’s traffic issue is the banning of busses between the canals. For that to happen light electric street trams or busses would be needed meeting all the main arteries coming into the city center sending the busses right back out to the suburbs again. After coming on a visit to Dublin some weeks ago – to visit the Mammy and d-Uncle – I had the misfortune of trying to get round to the north road via College Green and, after almost having a psychotic break-down, had to turn round and drive back up Dame St. to escape my tormenters: fleets of Bus Eireann busses, stuck tail2rostrum, nose2nose, criss-crossing from designated bus lanes to every and any other lane. All the while playing rubsies-dubsies, two-men-in-a-tubsies, with private motorists and taxies alike.
Here’s some advice from celestial inteligences: The taxies job is to go door2door whereas the Bus can involve walkies from door to bus stop and bus terminal to destination; whereas the tube/tram system take people on cross-city journeys; all meaning the city center can, should and ought, be left for a light-n-long, hi-frequency city-tram or electric bus fleet systems. Park-n-Ride is an idea, or maybe its several ideas in one, but in the traffic management context it means getting out of one mode of transport and on to another. But people already know this coz that’s what those Leap tickets are about. So why then does no-one talk of getting the double decker diesel busses out of the city center? Afterwhich well what can anyone say? The market prices cannot be managed for a single event so I guess free transport passes courtesy of some government agency or another are the thing perhaps bundled with promotional offers. And my sincere apologies to that bus driver I got out of my car to yell at before about turning and heading back to the Liberties.
Well done Sharon. Henceforth hump all begrudgers with traffic cones.
bonkers
Well done Sharon tat was a1
Not sure the panacea for these guys will be Lisbon – similar number of hotel beds (50,000) but Lisbon gets less than half the tourist numbers than Dublin.
Its a fantastic city and the weather at this time of year fantastic but they have not got the hotel capacity of the biugget european destination that will not led to the exact same issues with prices of accommodation than affects Dublin.
have your say